“Expect it to be done in a few days time,” Logan said to Amanda without preamble, walking into her living room and pouring himself a drink like he owned the place.Amanda didn’t mind though. She was in love … true love this time around, and how ironic was it that it was one of the men who was responsible for her mother’s untimely death that she had fallen in love with.Her mother would understand though, after all, it hadn't been Logan’s and the others' intent to have her killed, and besides, Logan was now helping her fulfill her late mother’s wish, so it was all good.He was even talking about marriage and kids, which obviously meant that he loved her just as much as she loved him, and how awesome was that?It had always been her mother’s wish to see her settled and happy, and now that she was in love, her mother would surely be happy wherever she was. Amanda realized that Logan had just said something, but she didn’t even remember what he said because she was too busy admiring
Bugging Ava’s house after receiving her spare key from Steve and making an extra copy of it had been the easiest thing in the world to do.Amanda had had Logan do it and according to him, it was such a seamless operation. For someone with such a high profile baby daddy, Ava sure as hell did not care about her safety.Prior to bugging the house, Logan had had the house monitored and noticed that no one was around for days, which made the whole thing easy enough.By the time Ava got back from wherever it was that she went to, Amanda could listen in on her conversations as much as she wanted.The one thing that absolutely disgusted her to listen to were the horrible sounds that the bitch made whenever she and Derek were going at it … which seemed to be any little spare time that they could get.Good gracious, Ava was one randy being! Amanda wondered how she and Derekalways managed to find time to have sex, considering that they had a little child in the house.However, it was none
"You’re kidding, right?” Steve asked Amanda, staring at her aghast. He had known that she would want something dangerous in return for helping him, but he hadn’t been anticipating something as dangerous as this.“I wish I was, but I'm not. You’re in the best position to do it. Logan, for some weird and stupid reason, refuses to do it. According to him, he doesn’t want anything to do with harming children, which is stupid as fuck, if you ask me. It has to do with his principles, or whatever. The child knows you though, and trusts you, so …”“She used to trust me. She doesn’t trust me anymore. Her stupid father poisoned her mind against me, so no surprise there.”“It doesn’t matter. I'm sure you can find a way to get her to come to you. That’s all you literally need to do. Grab her and bring her to me, and you're no longer indebted to me.”“And how do you propose I go about doing that? Enter into her mother’s house and snatch her under the watchful eyes of her mother or nanny or w
That awful day dawned bright and early. It was such a beautiful morning that belied the tragedies that would unfold later that day. Birds chirped happily, people went about their businesses and everything seemed quite fine.Harper was beside herself with excitement because that day was her friend’s birthday party, and Derek had bought her loads of gifts days ago, which she was to present to the celebrant.Ava had noticed that despite how young Harper was, she enjoyed giving, just like her father, and that was a lovely trait to have.For some reason, despite how normal the morning was, Ava had a deeply unsettling feeling in her gut, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why this was so.Derek had left her place very early this morning so he could fly over for his conference, so it was just her and Harper in the house. Ava couldn’t wait for him to come back so she could know exactly where they stood.Around three in the morning, when he had to leave so he could go to the airpo
Contrary to what Amanda thought, snatching up Ava’s daughter turned out to be a herculean task. She had prepared adequately for the day but definitely didn’t think that it was going to take as much time as doing it took. Logan had had to travel three days before with the guy who he had hired to kill Derek, so it was just her, Steve, and Denise, whom she had told about what she intended to do. They followed Ava’s every move right from when she left her house with her daughter until she dropped off the child at the park where the party was going to be held. That was when Amanda began to realize that snatching the kid wouldn’t be as easy as she had thought it would be. For starters, there were adults who supervised the whole thing everywhere. They didn’t let the kids out of their sight for even a minute, which meant that going close to any of the kids at that point was going to be very obvious and an alarm could be raised, which would not bode well for them. Still, she had anticipate
Harper had broken off from the group of children and was now merrily chasing another little girl who looked to be the same age as her and was the same size as well.As Amanda and her group observed them keenly, the children ran towards the parking lot, where the car that Amanda had rented was parked.They weaved in between the parked cars, enjoying their game of chase with reckless abandon. “Steve, get ready. They may run over to this side soon.” Amanda hissed at Steve.“But there’s two of them. What are we going to do about the other child?”“Well, I don’t know. Grab her as well. They’re just little kids. How hard can it be? Perhaps you should go to the backseat and Denise should come to the front seat so it’ll be easier for you to grab them, and make sure not to fuck this up." Amanda said.Although he was unwilling to do so, Steve did as she asked. By this time, the children had disappeared from sight again."Shit! When next they come around here, you're going to get down fr
Ava had been busy all morning with working on her script despite the fact that nowadays, she constantly felt tired as hell, because of the pregnancy.She certainly didn't remember being this tired during Harper's pregnancy, but maybe that was because she had spent most of her time crying and ruing the day that she met Derek back then.By the time it was afternoon, she decided to take a nap for at least an hour, after which she was going to head over to the park to pick up Harper, who was no doubt having a field day at her friend's birthday party.Derek had called Ava that afternoon to ask how she and Harper were faring.He did that all the time so that it was almost as though they were in a serious relationship, or even married.That, among other things, must have been why she fell for him so fast again after literally hating him for years.Just hearing his voice reminded Ava how much she missed him, even though he had literally only just left.Ava knew that if it turned out that they
Ava came to with the sound of frenzied knocking on her door and sat up groggily, disoriented for a little while. It didn't take her long to remember what had happened, or why she found herself on the ground, and she bolted up from the ground where she was sitting immediately she remembered.She regretted this sudden movement when her head swam and took a minute to steady herself, while the person who was at the door kept on knocking.As though on cue, her phone also chose that moment to ring shrilly, adding to the noise that the incessant knocking was already producing.Ava wasn't in the mood to receive visitors right then, but she remembered that Harper was still with her friend's mother and the woman could be the one who was knocking to drop her off.The television was still on, but news about Derek wasn't on it any longer. Derek was dead? No, of course not, he wasn't.There was no way on earth he would be dead. She must have dreamt the whole thing up. She snatched up her pho
“It was by sheer luck, if not, they never would have found you on time, and what would have happened then does not bear thinking about. Apparently, they managed to arrest the guy that Amanda initially hired to do all this sometime yesterday.Once the asshole realized that there was no chance in hell that he would get out of this and that he was well and truly done for, he began to sing like a canary. He led the police right to the house, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'm so thankful we got there on time.” Damien said.“Yeah, me too. It’s still hard to believe that Amanda could be filled with so much hate in her heart and that she was willing to go to such lengths to harm Derek, me, and even our child who has done nothing to her.”“I was surprised as well. I always knew that she was a mean person, but I never imagined that she was downright evil. I'm glad you followed through on your instinct.”“Me too. So is Amanda still …” Ava asked, unable to finish the question.“Unfortuna
Mother and daughter hugged each other for what felt like decades, and when they finally pulled apart, Ava's arm was hurting where she had been shot."I'm so sorry, baby. No one will ever hurt you again, I promise. Not when I'm alive." Ava said, ruffling Harper's hair, and wincing when she saw where the area on her head that had been shaved because of an injury there."The bad woman hit me with a gun. She shot Uncle Steve with the gun. Uncle Steve wanted to run away with me and Gracie, Mom." Harper explained, noting that Ava's eyes were on the wound.Ava gulped and averted her gaze immediately, unable to imagine the horror that Harper and Gracie had been through. Little children like them should never have to see someone murdered in cold blood.Seeing such a thing messed with even grownups like her, not to talk of children.The girls were going to need loads of therapy. Once again, Ava damned Amanda and Denise to hell and back in her mind. Suddenly, she realized the implications o
Ava had grabbed Denise because she wanted to use her as a human shield, and her plan worked pretty well, as it was all that saved her from what would have been certain death.The bullets that Amanda had just fired hit Denise point blank and in rapid succession. She died quickly, although the other two women didn’t know it yet.Ava felt Denise’s body jerk with the force of the shots at the same time that she saw Amanda crumple to the ground as though in slow motion.That was confusing, and Ava stared at her in surprise, unable to fathom what had just happened.She glanced down at Denise, whom she still held, and who was clearly very dead, and let go of her body immediately, feeling extremely sickened.She needed to focus on not getting killed, which was what Amanda was bent on doing to her.Amanda was trying to get back up, but before she could manage to do that, someone tackled her, and hit the gun out of her hand,Within moments, policemen swarmed the room, and Ava collapsed in relie
Denise and Ava stared warily at each other after Amanda left the room, and a few seconds later, Ava decided to try to reason with the other woman, even though she wasn’t sure that Denise was going to listen to her. “Denise, please, let us go. I promise not to press charges against you. You must know from all indications that there’s no way the both of you are going to get out of this unscathed. It doesn’t matter what Amanda says now. I can see in your eyes that you know it.” Ava tried to get to Denise. It was all she could do not to rush straight at Denise and grab Harper, who was whimpering in fear and trying not to move so that the knife would not nick her, away from the woman. She could see the fear and indecision in Denise’s face. Apparently, she was wise to realize what Amanda clearly failed to realize, which was that Ava was right and there was no way she and Amanda going to get out of this without being apprehended by the police. “Shut up!” Denise muttered. “Think abou
Ava didn’t wait to see what would happen next. She rushed straight at Amanda, faintly aware that her arm was hurting weirdly, but her adrenaline was too great for her to think anything of the pain right then. She had taken self-defense classes several times in the past, and although it had been a long time since she took them, those classes came in handy at that moment. Her life, as well as those of Harper and the other little girl, Gracie, depended on her. She couldn't let them down. She began to try to wrestle the gun away from Amanda, who struggled fiercely with her. As they struggled with the gun, it kept discharging, but by some miracle, neither of them was hit. Finally, the gun was out of bullets, and Amanda let go of it while yelling for Denise to come at the same time. Ava wasn’t done with her, though. She thought of poor Harper and her friend who were somewhere in that house, scared to death and definitely not in the best shape. She thought about Derek, who had been throug
Adrenaline pumped through Ava’s entire body, and utter rage filled her entire being. She was right! She had been right all along. These evil women were the ones who had abducted her daughter and another innocent child. She would have called for help, but there was no service on her phone, and she could only hope that Damien and the police would be somehow able to find her and soon too, before something bad happened to her or the girls. Had it been she had thought things through earlier, she would have gotten a car tracker before coming on this solo adventure. Unfortunately, never in her wildest dreams had she imagined what the night would bring, and so she had failed to take this necessary precaution. One moment, she was standing outside the house in fear, and the next moment, she found herself beside the door. Without caring what was waiting on the other side of the door, she threw herself against it as hard as she could. She thought fleetingly of the poor soul that was growing in
Ava didn’t go back home after driving away from Denise’s place. Instead, she parked her car the next block away from Denise’s house in a spot where her car would not easily be detected.Then she waited for what felt like an eternity for Denise to leave her house because she had every intention of following the woman to wherever it was that she was going.Her phone was blowing up with calls from Damien, who had left her several messages, asking her not to do anything drastic that could cause Denise to have the power to get her arrested or something.She ignored the messages and continued to wait. After a while, she saw a car, which she recognized as one of Amanda’s cars, come from the opposite direction and drive towards Denise’s house.Ava’s heart immediately began to beat really fast. Amanda was picking Denise up? Where the hell were both of them headed by that time of the night? Several minutes later, the car appeared again and drove off into the night.Ava let a few minutes pass, a
Ava sat in her idling car outside Denise’s house, her nerves failing her now that she was here.What was she thinking, sneaking out of her house like a thief in the night and coming here to the house of her sworn enemy?She just couldn't continue to sit at home, wringing her hands and crying while waiting for something positive to happen.She wasn’t sure what to do now that she was here, but she had to do something.Taking a deep breath, she took her phone and texted Damien to tell him where she was, just in case somehow, her hunch was right.If it was, then it would be incredibly dangerous and foolhardy to just walk into Denise’s waiting arms without telling anyone where she was.Even though it was only a little past eight in the evening, the streets were deserted, and there was no one around.Ava was about to open her car door and get out of the car when the lights in Denise’s house went off. Apparently, she was preparing to go to sleep.Ava sat still for a few minutes, wondering wh
It had been several days since Amanda and Denise paid their so-called courtesy call to Ava at her house … a move that Denise thought was incredibly stupid and dangerous.After all, the three women weren't friends and all of their acquaintances knew that, so it was surely going to look weird and suspicious that Denise and Amanda decided to visit Ava.Unfortunately, once Amanda put her mind to something, especially in recent times, it was practically impossible to change her mind, and so Denise had no choice but to go along with whatever she wanted, even if she thought it was foolhardy.“I’ve got a bad feeling, Amanda,” Denise said.“About what?” Amanda, who was in a terribly foul mood asked.It was now common knowledge that Derek had not only survived the gunshots but had also gone on to regain consciousness. Ever since this news broke out, Amanda had been unconsolable and had even taken out her frustration on Derek’s daughter, whom she still held captive.“I don’t know … I’ve got a ba